PROJECT

Green Square North Tower, valued at $94 Million is in one of Brisbane’s largest mixed use corporate office parks. The building offers tenants 23,500m² of A-Grade office space spanning over 12 levels, 600m² of retail space and basement parking for up to 154 cars.

The overall vision was to develop Green Square North Tower as a market leader in Sustainability. The Floth project team looked at utilising sustainability rating tools such the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA’s) Green Star program and the National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) office energy rating.

Initially a 5 Star Green Star Rating was desired, however after construction commenced the client raised the bar requesting the Floth design team achieve a 6 Star Green Star Rating. Green Square North Tower went on to become Queensland’s first GBCA 6 Star Green Star Office As-Built V2 rated commercial building.
Floth considered a number of design options, however Floth’s co-generation technology proved to be the most space and cost efficient option to reach the clients’ green targets.

The inclusion of the large scale gas powered co-generation (775kW) plant into a commercial office building signalled an Australian first for a commercial development. The co-generation technology works by recycling waste heat from power generation to chill water for the building’s air-conditioning system.

Floth has achieved a whole of building (Base Building & Tenancies) emission rating of 129kg CO²/m² per annum, which is the lowest emission figure for a building of its size in Australia. The North Tower generates 770kW of electricity as a result of the co-generation plant. To generate the same amount of peak electricity using solar panels, an area three to four times the size of the building’s available roof would have been needed.

Floth’s primary objective was to reduce the buildings’ carbon footprint by adopting good design principles. The gas powered co-generation plant incorporates the world’s best practice system of independent energy generation.

Green Square North Tower was the first commercial building in Australia with an operational co-generation plant to be awarded a 5 Star NABERS Energy whole building rating.

PROJECT RECOGNITION

• 6 Star Office As-Built (V2) rating.
• 5.5 Star NABERS Energy rating (Whole Building).

FLOTH AWARD WINS

• Finalist in the Premiers Climate Smart Sustainability Awards 2010 in the Innovation in Climate Smart Technologies Award.
• Gold Award of Merit at the Consult Australia Awards for Excellence 2009 in the Building Services category.